[duvel]

Spider-Man and Venom: Maximum Carnage
System: SNES
Publisher and other info: hell if I knew

This is one of my favorite SNES games. I remember I rented it at first because of the attractive red cartridge, but the game itself is awesome as well.

Plot: Spiderman and Venom must take on a group of villians who are plotting havoc within New York. Along the way they will encounter the likes of Doppelganger, Shrieker, the Hobgoblin, and others as they fight against their main enemy, the psychotic Carnage. A bit linear but perfect for this sort of game. 7/10

Gameplay: Good ol' beat 'em up style gameplay here. There is a tiny bit of variation here and there, but for the most part it's beat 'em up gameplay. Not that I mind that style, however. I happen to enjoyed beating the crap out of random thugs and people as Spiderman and Venom. However, if you don't like beat 'em ups, the gameplay is not for you. 7/10

Graphics: Very nicely done on the developers' part. The heroes and villians look fittingly buff and muscley, while the weak thugs are rather flabby. There's a nice comic book style throughout the entire thing. The cutscenes are even set up like comic book pages. When you hit an enemy, a thok or bam appears at the hit point. Overall, you feel like you're made of ink and are in a comic book. 9/10

Music: Oh man, this has some really cool music in it. I don't know who made the music, but if they released albums I want some of them. 9/10

Sounds: Thoks and whatnot are all well done and sound just like they should. 8/10

Replayability: Eh, you beat it, you've seen it all. There isn't enough difference between Spiderman and Venom to warrent going through the game twice, once as each character. Oh well. 2/10

Control: Rather solid, although the whole grab and block being the same button is weird, but I didn't use either of those enough to get unnerved by it. 7/10

Overall: I like this game a lot. I heartily recommend it to anyone looking for a great beat 'em up or Spiderman game. 8/10

[duvel]

Neverwinter Nights (And all expansions)
Developer: Bioware
Year: 2001?
ESRB Rating: Not sure, but I'd give it a T if I were them.

If you've been on IRC you might have heard me gloating about this game.

Plot: Depends on which of the modules you play. In the original, you play as yourself, and had finished your training at the Neverwinter Academy so that you could help Neverwinter find a cure for a plague that was striking it. In the first expansion (Shadows of Undretide) you play as a different person (still yourself) who has to find some artifacts that were stolen by a bunch of kobolds. In the second expansion (Hordes of the Underdark) you must stop the drow elves of the Underdark, who are currently assailing Waterdeep. They are all very good stories, and each of the characters has a great backstory to them. 9/10

Gameplay: The game uses 3rd Edition Dungeons and Dragons rules for everything. I'm very glad they did so, as the 3rd Edition rules (known as 3e to D&D enthusiasts) have some great advantages over AD&D, which is what Bioware's previous games used. The game consists of you wandering around a town or countryside trying to fulfill your objective. Most of the game is a balance of role-playing and ransacking a dungeon. The game is of variable difficulty, with the original module being pretty easy and Hordes of the Underdark being rather difficult. Menus were easy to navigate, and actions were easy to initiate. The classes weren't really well balanced, as a fighter is completely useless compared to any other class, and a rogue was the obvious choice for overall usefulness. Gold was rather plentiful when I played a monk, seeing as how I sold stuff I wasn't using, and monks don't need much to be destructive. 8/10

Graphics: Decent. It's very slow when in populated areas, however. 7/10

Sound and Music: Good sound, and the music was nice and ambient. The voice acting is superb. 8/10

Replayability: There's a module creator packaged with the game, so naturally there are many user-made modules out there. A lot of them are very well designed. Not only that, there's multiplayer(which my warez copy cannot do). This will stick around for a while. 9/10

Overall: This a great game. Even if you aren't a D&D fan, you should definately pick it up.

[Crusader]

Neverwinter Nights

POINT-COUNTERPOINT EDITION!


Plot: Trite! There are few of what could be called 'plot twists', and those few plot twists could be predicted by a baby. The plot is advanced by thirty-second conversations you miraculously overhear between the game's 'chapters'. These 'chapters' are several hours of murder interspersed with periodic trips back to the shop to sell your generic loot. Let's take the first chapter as an example of some of the amazing plot and game development. Your character just graduated the academy. Suddenly the academy is attacked by two-foot tall malformed midgets with leukemia. These deadly warriors succeed in murdering everybody inside, except of course, you. You slaughter them all with the greatest of ease. Turns out the academy was holding four magical critters which needed to be pulped to make the Special Magic Potion to cure the plague. BUT THEY ALL ESCAPED IN THE ATTACK OH NOS! There are four critters to find, and four sections of the city. What do you think the odds are that you'll find one in each section? Pretty darn good! The second chapter is the same. You need to find Three magical runes, and there are three areas to search. This game is Diablo without the randomization.

Gameplay: Absolute poop. Apparently they use 'third edition rules' but they only managed it by cutting out 95% of all D&D stuff at all. No flying, swimming, or climbing, all the social skills have been mashed into one big rarely-used 'persuasion' skill, which of course cannot be used for any main quests because that would involve programming something like a branching storyline. In a vague attempt to rebalance their game, they included level requirements on the more powerful items, but this only causes the item-reliant classes like the fighter and ranger to have to waste time leveling before being able to take on the harder areas, while the inherently magical spellcasters can charge ahead with impunity.

It is in fact the arcane spellcasting characters that are the overbalanced classes in Neverwinter, as opposed to authentic D&D, they don't need to wait a day before replenishing their spells, they can sit down on the floor for five seconds - in front of an open door filled with enemies no less - and stand up with full health and full spells. Their familiars can handle the mundane find-and-disarm rogue tasks, and there isn't even a penalty for having your familiar killed! Just take another five-second sit-down, and it'll be right as rain. If you lack for melee capacity, you're one second away from having it. I played through chapters two and three by summoning a skeleton, putting stoneskin on it, and watching it charge into battle against fifteen-foot tall fire giants and come out without a scratch. The advertised 'expansive areas' you can explore are nothing of the sort. Their 'forests' are essentially 100x100 ft. squares with impassable cliffs on all sides and about six trees dotted about the middle somewhere. The gaping caverns are 100x100 ft. squares with solid stone walls on all sides and about six stalagmites dotted about the middle somewhere. The huge cities are 100x100 ft. squares with brick walls on all sides and about six buildings dotted about the middle somewhere. Sounding familiar? Every area is like every other area, with nothing to break the monotony.

Enemy AI is atrocious. All enemies charge straight at you and attack, or stand there and shoot. No teamwork at all. Even an enemy who is literally a giant brain, something you would think would embody intelligence, follows the same tactics as the diabetic goblins in the prologue.

Sound and Music: Like most of the game - repetitive. Also some sounds are inexplicably ten times louder than all the others. The music was typical fluty-fantasy stuff.

The module creator would be the only saving grace of this game, were it not packed with random restrictions. You can't make your own spells at all, and items you make have the level restriction automatically assigned to them, so you can't give a weak NPC an edge with a powerful weapon - he won't be high level enough to use it.

Overall: This is a terrible game. Don't pick it up, especially if you are a D&D enthusiast. (2/10)

[scorch3000]

Psi-Opps - the Mindgate conspiracy
Year: 2004
System: PS2/Xbox/???
Genre: Action
Psi-Opps is a very underrated game, and ciminally ignored. At the start of the game, a soldier suffering from Amnesia wakes up to an unknown voice, as is freed from the cell he's in and given a pistol. He is then told by the unseen woman to get to the supply room. You proceed, through the first part, very basic, shoot about 7 guards, steal their guns (you can only hold a pistol and a 2nd weapon, only 2 guns at one time), so choose wisely, the shotgun can take off a guys head close up, but long range is pathetic, the machine gun is fast and powerfull, but inacurate, the assault riffle is more acurate then the machine gun but less powerfull. The sniper can take off a guys head at long range but only hold 15 bullets max. When you get to the suply room, the contact Sara gives you an injection to remember things, then your powers begin to slowly awaken, you get TK first followed by an optional training level. With this power TK, you can float objects and enemies at will (or until you Psi runs out). Instaid of shooting a bad guy, you can bash him to bits of the walls, making red stains on the walls, then for even more fun, throw the corpse into a trash compacter. Gap looks to large to jump? Hop on a crate or a metal plate, and TK-Surf your way over. Other powers wake up later, such as Remote Viewing or RV, what enables you to project your view out of your body, explore areas beind locked doors (essential for one part of the game), scout enemy movements, ect. You then unlock Mind Drain, what you use to drain enemy psi energy. If you drain a dead body, you get a small amount of Psi back. If you sneak up and get a guard from behind and drain him, he's hoisted into the air, screams and gibbers as you drain him, then just as you fully drain his psi, his head pops, splattering grey matter and blood over the floor. The next power unlocked is mind control, what enables you to possess a guard, and get him to do the dirty work. For an added bonus, when controling a enemy with a gun (enemys are known as Meat Puppets, come in 3 types MP1 [weak and useless], MP2 [better armed and smarter them Mp1's] and MP3's, the elite of the Meat Puppets, what are immune to most Psi attacks, unless caught offguard), press both control sticks for 3 secconds (both Xbox/PS2 versions the same) and the controled soldier kneels, aims the gun at his own head, and blows it off (takes over 1/2 of your Psi power to do so, and you can't minddrain a headless soldier). You unlock pirokinisis afterwards, and you shoot fireballs. The last ability is Aura View, and you can see hiden things with it. The game is very fun, perfect for the sick minded. Here's some thing you could try
Switch on the power when two techs are working on the wires and fry their brains out.
Mind Control a soldier and get him to shoot his friends then stand near an explosive crate and shoot them.
TK an enemy into another, then lob a explosive barrel at them.
Throw some enemies onto the electric floor on level 2 instaid of shooting them.
Sneak up and MD a MP1 until his head pops then throw the body into a pool of acid.
Sneak up behind a MP ready to MD, get spotted then blow his head off with a 12 guage shotgun round.
TK a soldier onto a converyer belt, watch as he's set alight at the first part, then crushed, burnt agin, crushed, burnt, crushed, then packed as food. Ew.

I give it 9/10

[Goshi]

This week and 2 days I'll be reviewing all the classic Mega Man games. Don't ask why.

Mega Man
System: NES
ERSB: E
Genre: Action

The first game starring the Blue Bomber we all came to know! Is this game actually worth it? Read and find out!

Plot:
Dr. Wily and Dr. Light made 8 robots however Dr. Wily was really evil so he made 6 six of them go evil (What idiot he should've made all 8 of them and yes it would be 9 but Capcom hadn't thought of Proto Man yet.) and tried to take over the world with them. Wow, as far as I know this plot is rather lame. 2/10 (Only 2 becuase I like Dr. Wily for some reason.)

Gameplay:
Baiscally jump over stuff, shoot enemies fight boss at end and get there weapon. The ability to get bosses abilities is pretty orginal (Kirby Adventure wasn't released yet if I'm correct.) and ability to select which stage you want to do first was pretty nice however the levels are too difficult to conquer at times. Take Guts Man's level with those infamous moving platforms, and you'll see what I mean. And bosses themselves whilst they have simple attack patterns they can be sometimes a pain to defeat. Cut Man is easy but the two blocks that you pick up in his room make it pain
to fight him without the Super Arm. Also Elec Man is overpowered, being able to kill
you in three hits when you have full health. 6/10

Graphics:
The graphics are very good is this game and even live up against it's many sequels and considering this is one of the first NES games it displays quite well. 10/10

Music and Sound:
The music in this game is quite catchy and its made pretty well and the sound effects are fine although I find it annoying listening to the Mega Buster noise over and over. 9/10

Multiplayer: -
There's none. Get used to it. -/-

Difficulty: Hard
The levels are too difficult and Elec Man and some other bosses are rather overpowered. Guts Man's Level is murder to play becuase of those platforms. On another note you can't save nor is there any passwords. Evil indeed.

Replay Value:
Once you beat the game what else is there to do? Nothing! Once you beat there's no other extras or anything. And the game is nowhere near fun after playing it a billion times, forget replaying it. 0/10

Overall:
27/50

Goshi says: "Don't even think about getting it."

[Goshi]

Mega Man 2
System: NES as well.
ERSB: E, of course
Genre: Action, obviously.

The 2nd Mega Man game ever! Is this way better than the first? Lets find out!

Plot:
Dr. Wily has returned and created 8 new robot masters to destroy Mega Man!
It became cliche in the later games. 1/10

Gameplay:
Heavily improved from the fisrt, you now get three extra items which can help you get through levels easier sometimes they're actually required to continue on as well. The bosses aren't overpowered anymore except for one boss in the Wily Fortress whom I won't mention however the gameplay is way better than the first, the levels are more fun and won't have you ripping out your hair... much. 7/10

Graphics:
Better than the first although at times some levels do look rather bland, like Metal Man's level for example. One great example of the graphics in Crash Man's Level how it gets darker and darker until you're at the top which is a nice effect. 9/10

Music and Sound:
Much better from the first however the sound effects are exactly the same from the first which is indeed bad. 8/10

Multiplayer: -/-
None, too bad.

Replay Value:
Ugh, none at all. 0/10

Difficulty: Medium
It depends on what difficulty you choose at the start but otherwise its mostly medium difficulty although hard mode is quite hard in some cases. Try beating Crash Man with the Mega Buster and you'll see what I mean.

Overall:
25/50

Goshi says: "It average, no arguing now."

[Goshi]

Mega Man 3
System: NES too.
ERSB: E, obviously
Genre: Looks its exactly like the last game, need I say more?

Plot:
Dr. Light and Dr. Wily were working on a new robot however they need the power crystals so Dr. Light sends Mega Man off to get them however 8 Robot Masters gaurd them and its up to Mega Man to beat them, the robots appeared to ruled by a robot named Proto Man. Oh well at least it isn't the cliched, Dr. Wily creates 8 robots thing. 3/10

Gameplay:
Exactly the same as the 2nd, however after defeating the 8 robot masters you have to go through 4 levels and fight all the MM2 Robot Masters... in Doc Robot form! After defeating them you then fight Break Man and then you finally get to the Fortress stages, obviously this is one of the longest Mega Man games yet and this time the fortress bosses aren;t like that one stupid fortress boss in MM2, thank goodness so this game improves on it. 8/10

Graphics:
As usual the graphics are excellent for its time I have no complaints this time except for the fact Mega Man's sprite is the same >.<, 10/10

Music and Sound:
The music is getting better I personally like Spark Man's and the first Fortress stage themes, the sound effects are exactly the same however and you might already be annoyed about them. 9/10

Replay Value:
The only reply value in this game is play over and over again really. 1/10

Difficulty: Medium
We can all safely agree this game is much easier then the first 2 but thats because the first two had cheating bosses.

Overall:
32/50

Goshi says: "Oooh, a decent one at last."

[Goshi]

Mega Man 4
System: I wonder...
ERSB: Its blidningly obvious
Genre: Look, its exactly the same as tyhe last games. Forget it.

A huge turning point for the series? Lets see then.

Plot:
Dr. Cossack creates 8 new robot masters to defeat Mega Man. [[Spoiler wipe!]] Wow, how original. 2/10

Gameplay:
Now you can charge your buster in this one, this is a nice feature so now you don't have to waste and hour or so trying to beat a single enemy. Also the game features two fortresses rather than one. But otherwise its exactly the same as MM2. 7/10

Graphics:
Even better than before, the intro scene and ending look excellent for its time the graphics are still as great as ever. However Mega Man STILL looks the same >.<. 9/10

Music and Sound:
The music is poor almost every tune sounds like another one, the sound effects are the same too. Capcom is getting a bit slack in this department. 5/10

Replay Value:
Exactly the same! The only replay value there is by beating the game over and over.
1/10

Multiplayer: -/-
Obviously.

Difficulty: Medium
The difficulty is simular to MM3 nothing at all that tough really although some parts are annoying with the respawning enemies

Overall:
24/50

Goshi says: "Even worse than the first game, this game is one you want to avoid."

[weasel]

The Sims 2 WARNING! LONG REVIEW!
Platform: PC/Windows
Developer: Maxis
Publisher: EA Games (EEEEVILLL!)
ESRB: T

This game is depressing.

The above statement is not only true, but it also indicates that it?s a masterpiece of gaming as an art form. Any game that prompts you to think of things outside of the game without throwing them into your face (ahem, I?m talking to you, Mr. Kojima) immediately scores some points in my book ? after I?m done crying and wishing I had a girlfriend as a result of seeing things happen in the game.

Honestly, though, The Sims 2 may just seem like a sell-out game to the average gamer. For a crowd that considers Counter-Strike to be among the only games worth playing anymore, they may think that The Sims 2 is a bit childish and casual for their hardcore playing habits. Sure, there?s no twitch moments, there?s no explosions (even the crashing sound when you bulldoze a lot has been removed), but there?s an incredible amount of depth and a dynamic plot.

There?s lots of ways that one could potentially get the most enjoyment from The Sims 2. The first thing that happens is a new neighborhood is constructed. For owners of SimCity 4, they can go into the terrain editor and make a neighborhood out of that. Otherwise, there are many ?template? neighborhoods available out of the box.

The second thing that happens is building the houses that make up the neighborhood. Some lack the patience to design a house ? there are many unique ideas for design, especially with the expanded multi-story system, porches, and diagonal walls, which I imagine would be intimidating to some ? and for this reason, there are at least 20 pre-built houses that you can slap anywhere in the neighborhood. If you select one of the three pre-built neighborhoods, there?s also the houses that come with the one you picked (according to the theme ? Veronaville, the Romeo and Juliet knockoff, contains mostly Renaissance-era houses).

Then you can create families and move them into their houses. I had a lot of fun just building characters, with the freedom available. There are plenty of pre-assembled parts to mix together, but you can also adjust individual parts to your liking. There are probably 40 sliders for the face alone, and probably none at all for the other parts (while there is a button to toggle the ?fatness? of your character, you can?t adjust any other traits ? so you perverts out there can?t adjust the breast size of your ideal woman). Hair options are also quite varied, from the typical (ponytails) to the atypical (corn rows and mullets) to the downright scary (liberty spikes and Mohawks). You have a lot of freedom with the makeup aspect, which can be applied to both men and women, and includes several types of blush, eyeliner, eyeshadow, and probably 50 colors of lipstick. Needless to say, there?s little for men there. There?s the ?costume makeup? section, however, so you can deck your guy out like a tiger or a football player or something. The only limitations imposed in the Makeup section are that you can?t apply facial hair (real or fake) to women.

With all the freedom about the head, it?s surprising to discover that the out-of-the-box clothing options are somewhat limited. There are many designs available to the user, but the main problem is that you can?t change the colors of them beyond the pre-made selections. So if you like the suit, but you can?t find one in emerald green, you?re out of luck. There are tools available to make your own clothes for the game, but it would have been better had Maxis allowed an RGB slider of some sort (even Tony Hawk games have a color slider).

The actual meat and bones of the game, however, is the living aspect. Watch your family from afar and see what they do, or dive in and control them. The game doesn?t actually have an active story unless you make one, so I recommend actually interacting with your sims. Anything can happen. As an example, I created a character that looks exactly like Agent 47 from Hitman, and moved him into his own hacienda by himself. He enjoyed himself ? until he came to the bitter realization that there were no other people in the neighborhood. He went crazy, downright delirious. Then he came up with an imaginary friend, the Social Bunny (a guy in a fuzzy pink bunny suit that fell from the sky). The first thing he did? Take out his rage on it, of course. Dust clouds were kicked up everywhere, cartoon style. Then he calmed down and hugged the thing before he bounced back up into space.

The time came for me to create a second character, an Eve, so to speak. I made a caring (but lazy) female, bearing long brown hair and glasses. Once she was settled in to her relatively small establishment, I gave her no electronic devices whatsoever. She owned a bookshelf and a chess table in addition to the standard kitchen (which burnt down on the very first day) and bathroom (which she spent more time in than I can remember). The Hitman came over and (what else?) hit on her a bit, and after cheating her at chess, they were living happily and wishing they had phones to call each other. (I did eventually get a phone for each of them so they could chat all day.)

I thought that the two unlikely lovebirds would need a bit of influence, so I took control. The first move? I made Hitman make out with the girl. It went smoothly enough, so I figured they?d enjoy some time together.

I switched back to Tera?s (the girl?s) point of view to discover that she was madly in love with Hitman. She dreamed about the guy. She thought about making out with him while she ate her cereal. It was the makings of a crappy romance novel, right there on my screen. But instead of shoving the game and firing up a copy of MS Word, I continued to play the game. Tera, being the lazy girl that she is, didn?t have a job at the time, nor did she take much effort in changing her clothes after waking up (so she would instead wander about the house in her underwear ? I didn?t make her like this, I swear). So Hitman came over on a random whim (I guess he really wanted to be with her), and she proposed to move in with him (in her underwear). But instead, HE moved in with HER, in the lesser of the two houses (come on, Hitman is a millionaire with a hacienda, and he instead sells everything including his toilets and moves into Tera?s one-story shack?). I did my job and evicted both of them and moved back into the hacienda to find that it was stark naked. I wasn?t kidding that Hitman had sold all his toilets (I suppose I should clarify that I didn?t actually name him Hitman ? I used the codename ?John Green?). He also decided to adopt Tera?s name (le Vont), becoming the only male in history to possess a maiden name.

I must have spent half an hour refurnishing the house ? and I had about three rooms left empty because I couldn?t think of what to use them for.

Things went fine and dandy. They weren?t officially engaged at that point, so I took the initiative and made John ?47? Green-le Vont (he gets compliments on the hyphen) propose formally to Tera, complete with shiny ring. John was dressed in his traditional suit (with red tie), but Tera was in a swimsuit fresh out of the pool. I think that may have contributed to her rejection to him ? that, and the fact that John proposed in the kitchen while she was making dinner. The noodles got burnt somehow, and John spent the next THREE DAYS crying loudly when he so much as caught sight of her. She just acted indifferent as if nothing had happened.

?How could you?!? I shouted at the screen, prompting deeply confused expressions on passersby. ?You have all this going for you and you just put him down like that?! Argh!?

But all that they did beforehand depressed me. And this brings me back to the introduction of this review.

It depresses me because, while it may seem so easy here to get a girl and ensure that they are bound in holy matrimony, it makes me think of how pathetic my own life is by comparison. I have to remember that this is only a game, and that finding my true love is never as easy as going door to door with my neighbors and asking around.

My life is a joke.

That?s why I play games.

And in the case of The Sims 2, this is one worth playing. For you romantically challenged folks out there, I?d like to point you in the direction of another game, unless you?d rather torture your Sims (put a married couple on the top floor of a mansion and delete the stairs). Whatever makes you happy.

I just hope you'll pardon my angst that somehow made it into the review.

SUMMARY
Graphics: 9/10 ? there are some glitches around, especially with the post-processing effects, but it manages to look good without needing incredible amounts of technology.
Sound: 8/10 ? Everything sounds as it should, but the music selections aren?t as neat and catchy as they were before. There also isn?t enough music in the game. You can insert your own music to be played on the radio stations in game, but this doesn?t affect the other modes.
Gameplay: 8.5/10 ? It?s an acquired taste. Some may not get into this, but it has a high amount of freedom. It?s very hard to work creatively, however, when the default stuff doesn?t work too well (especially clothing).
Bugs: Very Minor ? glitches will inevitably happen, especially with the camera controls, but nothing that upsets the flow of the game. A patch was released that corrects some very minor issues (relating to Wants/Needs and downloaded content), but the game plays well enough without it.
Overall: 9.5/10

[weasel]

Dead Man's Hand
Finally, gambling has a purpose - to aid in the killing of millions of evil cowboys.

Year: 2003
Genre: FPS
Developer: Human Head Studios
Publisher: Atari/TryMedia/Fileplanet Direct2Drive
Platform: PC/XBox

If you look at the majority of first-person shooting games on the market today, a vast majority of them will fall into either the Modern Combat (Raven Shield, Battlefield 2), World War 2 (Call of Duty, Medal of Honor) or Sci-Fi (Doom) categories. Thus far, there have been very, VERY few shooters that take place in the Old West. You know, Cowboys vs. Indians, that whole Civil War thing goin' down, women and whiskey. Well, Kemosabe, this is the game for you.

GAMEPLAY

Dead Man's Hand casts you as El Tejon, a former member of The Nine - a group of gunslingin', bank-robbin' varmints that just want to kill stuff. You don't quite agree with their moral decisions (they shoot women and children), so you try to leave. Tennessee Vic, the leader, thinks ill of your attempts, and imprisons you. You escape, and vow revenge on The Nine.

So once you escape from your cell, with the aid of Iago (a Mexican revolutionary), he gives you your first weapons - a crappy knife, a Colt .45 Peacemaker, a Westerner carbine, and a Martin pump-action shotgun. He tells you to find some targets and practice for a bit, and here you discover the first thing that sets this apart from other shooters (well, aside from the fact that it takes place in the West) - the scoring system.

See, DMH rewards you points, arcade style, for not only capping outlaws, but also for destroying parts of the environment. Shooting pots and pans, bottles of whiskey, barrels of gunpowder, and pretty much anything that will break will give you points. The more targets you successfully hit it rapid succession, the higher your Combo Meter gets, and the more points you'll get for hitting those targets. So if you go on a wild rampage and just shoot everything, you'll be vastly rewarded for it.

In addition to the Combo Gauge, hitting targets will give you Legend to a second bar on the screen. Legend Points allow you to use Trick Shots (essentially, just a fancy term for alternate fire). The Trick Shots differ for each weapon, and some weapons don't have trick shots (Dynamite has an alt-fire, but doesn't require Legend Points). You can "fan" the hammer on your Peacemaker, make more accurate shots with your Westerner, blow all four barrels on the Kansas Pepperbox, or stun your enemies with the Martin shotgun.

But why should you care about shooting the environment, if you can get Legend with just shooting enemies? Does the environment hurt enemies? Yes, it does. You can blow up wagons, crush enemies with big rocks, or destroy them with barrels of gunpowder (which has larger splash damage than you'd think). Use of the environment nets you more points than merely shooting enemies, so you'd best be on the lookout for creative ways to dispatch your foes (like dropping wooden awnings on them). (Fun thing #1: Shooting the hats off your enemies, crushing them, blowing them up, or shooting them while they're in mid air will net you extra points.)

Some points in the game will have you riding your faithful steed. These are usually the most fun - you no longer have to concentrate on moving, so you can aim your shots carefully. (Fun thing #2: if you shoot a fellow rider instead of his horse, the horse drags him across the ground for a while.)

When you reach one of The Nine (or other bounties), you fight him/her in a boss battle. They usually have lots of health, but this is usually great for your score (pull out something with fast fire like the Lewis Revolving Rifle and just let loose on 'em - high combo points). They're rarely much of a threat, unless you're playing on Hard.

The real innovation in this game, however, is what makes the game live up to its title. You play a round of Poker before (almost) every mission. If you get a winning hand, you gain bonuses to your initial loadout (more ammo, more Legend points - yes, you too can be a Maverick and be legendary just because of your gambling skills) and get the option to play again for more benefits. But if you lose, ALL of your bonuses are gone and you don't get to play again. (Not to worry - restarting the mission will let you play more Poker.) Scoring the Dead Man's Hand (both black Aces and Eights) gives you maximum Legend and full ammo for all your weapons - in just one draw.

You'd think that multiplayer would be awesome, taking all the same things that made singleplayer so great and applying them to deathmatch. But no. There are no physics in multiplayer, aside from those that control ragdolls and dynamite. There are no mounted machine guns and cannons to use. There are no barrels of gunpowder. It's just straight deathmatch with the DMH weapons. Your player moves just as slowly as he does in singleplayer, unless you turn on the Fast movement mutator, in which case you move fast enough for deathmatch (but your footsteps now sound incredibly fast and your player models spaz out when they run). You only start with a Peacemaker and must find all your weapons. There are also team-based matches like CTF, but nothing that would be very fun with DMH's slow weapons (which in SP mode are made up for with the physics).

Score Tally:
Direct2Drive/Retail/Xbox version: 8/10 - Fun in SP, but after that, multiplayer really sucks - leaving the only replay value to be beating the game on a higher difficulty and getting high scores.
TryMedia version: 7/10 - Still fun, but movies are entirely cut out, which makes plot harder to understand.

GRAPHICS

The game looks good using its technology (Unreal Tech 2.0). It doesn't have that much in the way of technology frills, compared to other games released close to it (like FarCry), but it does look nice. The models and textures are well done and quite nicely used, the level design is pretty darn good, and the characters are realistic and believable. The only problem is the occasional texture glitch (where textures will appear to change when you move the mouse or shoot). I must also add that the developers "cheated" with their reloading animations - the gun usually just goes off screen when you reload (exceptions being the sawed-off shotgun and the alt-fire on the Kansas Pepperbox).

9/10 - Could have used a heat haze or something, but looks cool already. TryMedia's version didn't change the graphics.

SOUNDS

The game sounds pretty good (aside from the voice acting, which usually sounds like the programmers just distorted their voices to sound "tough"). Guns have the appropriate boom to them, and it's incredibly satisfying to destroy wagons and such with gunpowder (especially using the SBS Coach Gun). The music, whenever it plays, is also quite good and fitting for the period.

One thing I noted was missing: the theme from The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly when you beat a level. I wish that were in here.

Score Tally:
Direct2Drive/Retail/XBox version: 9/10 - Voice acting could be better
TryMedia version: 7/10 - Music entirely cut out.

CONTROLS

Weapon numbering is initially screwed up (3 for pistol, 7 for knife, nothing on 1 or 2 for some reason), but can be easily changed. Mouse sensitivity is hard to adjust properly. Otherwise, though, nice and responsive, with easily changed controls. I have not played the XBox version, but I have reason to believe that their controls would be about as good as Halo's.

BUGS

Retail: Texture glitches, movies sometimes play video too fast (while catching up with sound after resolution switches).
TryMedia version: Fatal crashes on some occasions, cannot be patched to the latest version (1.1).

Verdict: Buy the game. Don't even BOTHER with TryMedia's version. I had to get a refund on that one.

OVERALL

This is a fun shooter that finally lets you relive your favorite moments from The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly (or whatever Western you like).

8.5/10

[Goshi]

Star Fox: Assault

"What is he? Some kind of Andross wannabe!?"

Genere: Action
System: GameCube
Developer and Publisher: Namco, Nintendo (Hey look they both start and N and end with O!)
ERSB: E (With use movies ratings for where I'm from and this G8+ hmm...)

Supposedly the true Star Fox action game we've been all waiting for, well lets see then...

Plot:
Actually sorta more orginal than the Star Fox games. Andrew Oikany has threatened the Corneria army is currently at war with them soon Star Fox comes to stop the crazyed nephew of Andross. Soon however a strange creature appears after Adrews defeat, these creatures are called Aprioids and they have the ability to control machines and people (Kinda like something of Star Trek) they seem to be a threat of the universe and Star Fox tries to stop them. Their ideals are sorta interesting but it huge spoiler so I'll leave that to you to work out.
7/10

Gameplay:
There are two types of gameplay, All-Range and Limited Range. When I mean by limited range I mean the classic Star fox sort of action you know flying through levels and blasting enemies before they blast you, fun stuff. Sadly most of the levels are All-Range and mostly on foot. I mean it is nice there's on foot missions but I really wanted to see a lot more classic Star Fox action. And when they give you the classic Star Fox action it is pretty easy. But then again I am absolute freak, I LOVE Star Fox games so you wouldn't be surprised. There is also some points when you ride on an Arwinds wing and blast enemies with a Plasma Rifle, while it sounds cool and all but why doesn't the Arwing help you shoot enemies!? Come on guys what harm is in that anyway? The game is also considerbly shorter but I'll get to that soon.
8/10

Graphics:
They are awesome, they're just as good as they were in Star Fox Adventures, it is gorgeus although it is little toned down from it it is still awesome. The game never slowed down for me and everything is so well detailed. Defintly some of the best graphics for the GameCube.
10/10

Music and Sound:
The music is really hard to hear but otherwise its mostly remixes of Star Fox 64 tunes although Star Fox 64 still has better music go figure. The sound effects are far too loud that most of the time you will be unable to hear the music. Also most of the voice acting is terrible. Not as bad as the voice acting in other games but still pretty poor. I was hoping they would use the same voice actors from Star Fox Adventures or at least Star Fox 64 but sadly it was not ment to be.
6/10

Multiplayer:
A+, the mutiplayer is tons of fun to do. You have about 4 characters to select from (2 being secret ones.) and HUGE slew of weapons like the Sniper rifle or the Blaster and you can also ride Tanks and Arwings, also another fun thing to do is ride on top of an Arwing! The multiplayer is verty well done, the graphics aren't even toned down which really helps it as well (Something they should've done in F-Zero GX). One of the best multiplayer modes the GameCube can provide, only beaten by Smash Bros Melee (Of course!)
10/10

Replay Value:
The game is far too short. It has less levels to play from as Star fox 64, it also does not have mutiple paths like in Star Fox 64 which greatly harms the replay value. The multiplayer however boosts its replay value and there are MANY unlockbles so if you have friends wirtth you all the time you'd be playing this non-stop.
6/10

Difficulty: Easy - Medium
Meh, I found the game quite easy but then again the Arwing levels are far too easy and the bosses to provide little difficulty although a lot of the on foot levels are dangerous sinmce a fair amount of the enemies are immune to the bustyer which makes it quite difficult, although Fox is like a tank, it takes a LONG amount of hits kill him and if your in vechicle you can easily escape it when its about to explode to keep Fox's health making him sorta immortal go figure, also the extra lives are in blindingly obvious spits meaning it will be hard to lose all your lives. Pretty easy game I guess.

Overall:
8.8/10

Goshi says: "A MUST have. Too bad it's short."

[weasel]

No, this cannot be! I have lost my monopoly over the review threads! Not to worry...

Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes
"God's got a sense of humor, alright."

The original MGS returns with all the moves and souped-up graphics from MGS2, plus completely redirected cinema sequences and a few extra easter eggs.

Platform: Gamecube
ESRB: M (violence, blood, gore, suggestive themes)
Company: Nintendo, Silicon Knights, Konami

GAMEPLAY
The game retains many of the same things that made MGS1 so great - the engaging (if not incredibly confusing) plot, the intense stealth-action gameplay, and all the ways they try to get you involved in the game.

The core sneaking mode of MGS1 feels about the same, aside from the addition of several things that made MGS2 so much better. Snake can already run, shoot, crawl, and lean against walls. But what's been added is shooting around corners, hold-ups, tranquilizer guns (which almost make the game too easy in parts), hanging from ledges, first-person aiming, and rolling (which can serve as excellent transportation when attempting to break through guards).

With all this cool stuff, you'd think that gameplay would be the master. Unforunately, that's not the case - about 3/4 of the game is spent listening to CODEC calls and watching cinemas. That's fine and dandy if you haven't played the game already, but for returning veterans of the original game, the only real drawing point to watching these old cinema scenes again is to see how things have changed with the new director in place (he also directed Versus, which I've heard is a good action flick). You get to see Snake do all kinds of things that you could only wish you could do in the real game (just watch the stunts at the end of every boss battle). I found myself skipping everything near the end of the game because the cinemas are just too long.

Several things were ripped out, though. The most obvious is the VR Missions - I hoped that they would bring those back after how awesome they were in MGS2:Substance, but it was not to be.

For newbies to the MGS series that really need to play the original game, this is the ultimate edition - but veterans may not be justified in a purchase with so much that's exactly the same.

Veterans: 6/10 - The same game you've played before with new graphical fluff and the moves that you've been spoiled by in the sequel.
Newbies: 10/10 - Play it already.

GRAPHICS

The Gamecube stands up to its competitors here. Everything looks absolutely fantastic with the exception of the thermal goggles - while they do function realistically, it's very difficult to see what you're supposed to see (e.g. mines, lasers, etc.). The characters display real emotions and nearly rival those of Half-Life 2. If only they hadn't cheaped out on the CODEC stuff - I'd prefer the 3D models, MGS2 style, over the anime portraits.

9/10 - A few minor nitpicks. Regarding the thermal goggles: there are alternatives (mine detector and cigarettes).

SOUNDS

The music has been remixed all over, with new themes that play for each boss, and unique music for the different areas of the game. Sound effects also work quite well, with each weapon sounding like it looks. The explosions tend to be a little understated though, and Konami took the liberty of re-recording all the character voices - which, while it wouldn't be so bad normally, they changed all the female characters drastically. They're all the same actors (except for the Ninja, who is now voiced by Rob Paulsen), but they removed their accents. I prefer the original voices from MGS1 - why couldn't they just reuse all the old lines and record new ones as they saw fit? They might as well have removed Snake's "smoker voice" while they were at it.

9/10

CONTROLS

Kinda difficult to imagine how the game would play on a Gamecube controller after you've done the PS2 games. The button layout is almost completely changed. The A button fires your weapon, B punches, X crouches, and Y is your action button. The analog button stuff was almost entirely compensated for, as is the fact that the Z button is so far out of the way (there is now an option to toggle first-person mode as opposed to having to hold the button). To safety your pistol and put it away without shooting (or aim the FAMAS properly), you hold the Y button and A button together, then release A to put the gun away. It sounds confusing, and it was at first for me. A recurring problem is the fact that the L and R buttons lean while in first person - if you need to use your items, you'll have to exit first person mode to do it (which leads to some headaches about not getting to your Rations in time).

8/10 - Some annoyances. Lack of a proper tutorial might leave some newbies in the water.

BUGS

I didn't find much to speak of aside from model clipping errors in cinemas (Ocelot's hair floats in the air, Sniper Wolf's hair tends to go through her shoulders, etc).

OVERALL

A nice update of a classic game, but veterans might be put off.

9.5/10

[weasel]

Katamari Damashii
I refuse to use Namco's crappy romanization - because Damacy doesn't even mean anything.

Platform: PS2 Exclusive (with no plans for a port)
Developer: Namco
ESRB: E

The King of All Cosmos has "accidentally" destroyed all the stars in the sky, and it's up to you (The Prince) to make them again. But since matter cannot be created nor destroyed, you improvise by rolling up little katamari (literally: heap, lump) and turning them into stars.

So you start small. Your katamari is only about 5 centimeters (2 inches for those who stand by their beloved Imperial measures). What you do is you roll around various places on Earth (the House, the Town, and the World) and run over as many relatively small objects as you can to attach them to your ball and ultimately make it bigger. As your katamari gets bigger, you can pick up bigger things (instead of just bouncing off of them).

The progression in Katamari is not completely obvious. Sure, the game informs you whenever you reach certain sizes in your stage, and even goes so far as to split the game into several different levels (10 regular "Make A Star" levels, and several bonus constellation challenges), but it won't force-feed you all this information. It's all in experimentation - you figure out for yourself whether or not you can pick up that milk bottle on the table.

The things you pick up are usually typical objects, but with that wacky Japanese twist. You'll not only find regular stuff like screws, Lego bricks, postcards, golf balls, and action figures, but eventually you'll find grizzly bears wandering around town, mermaids, giant squids, office buildings, and The Amazing Jumboman (an obvious UltraMan ripoff that comes in about 4 varieties). It's especially funny whenever you start picking up the living things - the people's reactions when you roll them up in your katamari are pretty funny (like the policeman's stupified "Heeey!").

It sounds pretty easy from the description, but you have to make your katamari pretty big within a strict time limit. While a time limit is about the worst way to balance a game, in this case it's really the only way.

If you don't like time limits, you can unlock three Eternal stages that just let you goof around.

The Constellation stages give you a few minutes to do themed tasks based on which constellation you make. For example, for Virgo, the King asks you to roll up as many females as you can. For Corona Borealis, you need to pick up a bunch of crowns ("We cannot open our eyes, it is so dazzling!"). For Ursa Major, the King tried to make it himself, but lost just one bear from his own katamari, and he asks you to find another for him. But you can only get one - and size matters.

For those catch-em-all enthusiasts out there, Katamari keeps track of what objects you've picked up before (including alternate versions of several objects, and objects with special names). There's probably over 1,000 unique objects to pick up in this game, some of which can only be found in one place in the entire game, so it'll keep you occupied through quite a while trying to find everything.

While the game itself is very short (once you make the Moon, it's over), unlocking stuff takes quite an an effort (and it's also quite addicting, so you'll be playing stages over again to beat your records).

Multiplayer is somewhat fun, but there is only one stage, and the splitscreen is sometimes difficult to deal with. Picking up your opponent with your katamari is always a hoot, though.

Graphically, this looks like an N64 game in high res - but that's not a bad thing. This is actually because the game uses a minimalistic style that, while lacking in fancy schmancy effects, manages to represent everything realistically (to some extent). The King's face made me laugh out loud because of how crazy it is.

On the audio front, this game has one of the most unique soundtracks out there, almost rivaling that of The Neverhood. You have songs made out of text-to-speech samples (Wanda-Wanda), a Frank Sinatra-esque love song (Que Sera Sera), a Nintendo style chip song with lyrics in Japanese (Lonely Rolling Star), and a calm acoustic guitar tune (Roll Me In) among others. The sound effects in game tend to get a little loud at times, and sometimes even annoying (like the timer), but if your TV's volume is kept in moderation, it's enjoyable and even funny at times (the strange touches they throw in are just weird - when the King is talking, his voice is a repeated record-scratch sound).

Gameplay: 8.5/10 - Kinda short, and multiplayer is highly limited. Here's hopeing it's fixed for the sequel, We Love Katamari.
Graphics: 7/10 - 30 frames a second, low-poly models, but the world is HUGE and to near-perfect scale, so it's forgiveable.
Sound: 9/10 - Annoying at some points, but very pleasing to the ear on the whole, with a very good soundtrack.
Controls: The game uses a simplistic setup where you only have to use the two analog sticks. While this requires you to have the Dual Shock controller, that shouldn't be a problem if you already have a PS2.

Overall: 8.5/10
This is a very enjoyable game that nearly anybody can get into. Easy to pick up, and very fun to play for a long time. There are flaws, but not enough to kill it.

[Goshi]

Okay I know this game would be onsidered obscure and all but lately Klonoa has been a lot more well known so this game can't hide anymore...

Klonoa: The Door to Phantomile

"Get him Rongo Longo! And watch for attacks from behind!"

System: PSOne
Genere: Platformer
Designer: Namco
ERSB: E

A platformer game for the Playstation, does it match up to the others or does it do better? Or maybe it fails miserbly read and find out!

Plot:
Its the typical good vs. evil plot really, Klonoa sets and to explore and soon comes upon a villian named Ghadius and Joka, the two kidnap someone from the Kingdom of the Moon in search for a pendant to travel to that kingdom, Klonoa being the hero has to stop them, gee how orginal. Although they are some interesting parts in the end the plot is pretty poor either way. Quite a shame, if it was an RPG it would lose a lot of points but it isn't so...
4/10

Gameplay:
Plays a lot like those classic Mario games and such but considering its system is simular to Kirby 64 it plays more like that than classic Mario games. You also have a magic ring which shoots a rather short ranged bullet which can grab and enemies in which you can throw at other enemies (WOW!) or do a second jump which can also defeat enemies below you. Also the levels are not completely linear as you would expect some levels require you to find keys to continue, usally the'yre in obvious spots although in some cases not really, one level was pretty much a large maze in which you navigate to find keys which was a lot of fun to do. The gameplay gets quite a nice score of...
9/10

Graphics:
Its a mix of 2D and 3D, the 2D sprites are quite well done although sometimes they look blurry when you see them close up and 3D work is superb the bosses aren't really that blocky and they're made well, the graphics are vety nicely done really I have no complaints except the fact that sprites sometimes look blurry.
9.5/10

Music and Sound:
The sound effects aren't annoying thank goodness. The music is the same story the music is quite impressive actually although it doesn't match the greatness of Casltevania SOTN's music; the music is still awesome. Although don't expect to be humming the tunes all the time. However some of the boss themes sound bad and get on your nerves but the level songs we're always good I really loved the theme for level 6-1's theme.
9/10

Multiplayer:
There is no multiplayer.
--/--

Difficulty: Medium
The game was pretty easy for me although there were some frustrating parts throughout and the bosses are very challenging at times as well so the difficulty is quite a balanced bag I guess.

Overall:
9/10

Goshi says: "If you don't mind colourful and kiddy graphics, pick this up. I pormise you won't be dissapointed."

[Goshi]

Its not obscure because it's Gradius

Gradius Gaiden

System: PSOne
Genere: Platformer
Designer: Konami
ERSB: E

A game that sadly never was released in English as far as I know but its still an awesome game and you don't really need to understand Japanese to play it (The weapons and voices are all english) anyway onto the review.

Plot:
4 ships set off to defeat the evil Bacterians... again. There isn't really much of a plot in this game. It is one of those games that don't require a plot to have fun in anyway...
1/10

Gameplay:
Its the Gradius games we've all come to love. No different at all still kept somelevel ideas, added a few new ones. One of the levels where a level of Gradius 3 gets sucked into a black hole was cool. The boss battles are frustrating but fun. Its still Gradius we all love. Unlike in other Gradius games however no custom ship mode. Instead you must select one of 4 ships and then a type of barrier you wish to use. Kinda limits the replay value but still nice neverless.
9.8/10

Graphics:
Whilst it doesn't use the full power of the mighty PSOne the graphics are still awesome. Having its very Casltevania SOTN styled effects it does look really nice. It just doesn't have much 3D polygons but then again PSOne 3D graphics usally look bad.
9/10

Music and Sound:
AWESOME. It even beats Gradius 3's soundtrack which is amazing really, the music is awesome, the sound effects are fine too nothing annoying there. I only had one complaint and that was the annoying "song" that plays near the final boss. But otherwise awesome music.
9.5/10

Multiplayer:
I actually haven't tried out the Multiplayer but I assume its the same from the other Gradius games. You take turns trying to complete the level you are currently up to. Not the best multiplayer ever but then again I never tried it on this game so I can't really give it a score.
--/--

Difficulty: Hard
Even on the easiest difficulty setting this game can be very difficult, sometimes the levels are rather tame but other times they can be murdersome. Although I am a freak at these sort of games (That's why Galaxy Slime was hard. I played through it finding it fairly easy.) so others might be in a nightmare for the whole game.

Overall:
9/10

Goshi says: "Shame it wassn't released in English, it is an awesome game and you'll probably have to resort to emulation to actually play it."

[Goshi]

Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones

"You can't be serious. You want to keep going?"

System: Gameboy Advance
Genere: Strategy/RPG
Designer: Nintendo
ERSB: E

The third of the GBA Fire Emblem games, can this one matxh up to FE7, well we shall see.

Plot:
Its the typical evil army trying to do evil and destroy sacred rocks for evil. Its far from orginal and is nothing at all that exciting, so don't be impressed. This is bad because the game has RPG elements which really harm the game with its poor plot.
1/10

Gameplay:
Its just like FE7 only now you have two classes to choose from which makes things more interesting and now certain classes have new abikities. Biships now have the Slayer ability which makes monsters take extra damage from their attacks for example. The Items are derectly importanted from FE7 only with a fair new slew of weapons and spells to boot so this game is not much different from FE7 although this game has a World Map, shops that can acessed outside battle and optional dungeons to boot so thie gameplay in this is somewhat better than FE7 in my opinion.
9.8/10

Graphics:
Exactly like FE7, the animations are very smooth and levels are well made I see very little flaws here. It doesn't use the full power of the GBA graphics from they still look quite nice.
9/10

Music and Sound:
Eh, the music is okay. Although heavily improved from FE7 the music there's a huge lack of variety in the songs. The songs will play over and over which is enough to dirve you mad. One of the flaws from FE7 as well. Otherwise the music is okay nothing at all that fantastic.
7/10

Multiplayer:
The Link Arena simply imvolves making a team of five of your characters and then having the fight each other to earn points. Whoever earns the most points wins. Although it would much nicer if you actually had multiplayer maps to play really. And also certain characters cannot be used even if they have weapons so this deducts its score a fair bit.
5/10

Difficulty: Medium
I never found many difficult moments although once a character dies you can never used it again which adds to its difficulty and trust its really easy for that to happen so the difficulty is a mixed bag. I found the game easy but some do find it hard so I guess it gets medium.

Glitches:
Theres one harmful glitch I should warn you about, when a Wervyn Knight uses a distant weapon like a Javelin ad the piercing effect is triggered the game will usually freeze. One of the bosses does it too which is very bad. The way to avoid this is simply turn animations for Wervyn Knights off.

Overall:
8/10

Goshi says: "A good game but it has a fair amount of flaws."

[weasel]

TimeSplitters: Future Perfect
"Don't let them eat my brains!"
"Do you think anyone would notice?"

System: PS2, Gamecube, XBox
Developer: Free Radical
Publisher: Electronic Arts (NOOOOOooooooo!)
ESRB: M (Violence, blood and gore. They neglected to mention "mild language." Game experience may change during online play)

I'm just going to jump straight in to this one, so as to show the Halo fanboys what they're missing without making them have to read too much.

GAMEPLAY

You are Sgt. Cortez (that bald guy with the weird goggles that's been on the game cover since TS2). Your mission is to travel back and forth through time to stop the war against the alien TimeSplitters from ever happening. And unlike the first two games, the story actually focuses on you and you alone, not a whole bunch of characters.

It's standard FPS affair, brought forward from the days of Goldeneye on the N64. Plow through missions, killing any bad guys you see, and accomplish your objectives. Rarely is there any semblance of stealth in this game (the only time I can think of is in "You Genius, U-Genix" at the beginning), though strategic thinking and a sharp eye do come in handy to avoid large conflicts.

Story Mode has you going through missions, occasionally stopping to watch a cinema sequence (these are often very humorous, especially when Cortez tries to adopt a catch phrase that nobody seems to like). You have guns, enemies, sometimes driveable vehicles, turret scenes, sniper scenes, and (as if the FPS cliche's haven't gone far enough) a gravity gun attached to your wrist. The game tries to emulate HL2's use of the gravity gun by creating puzzles (usually, though, these are just manipulating levers from a distance with it), but that's about where its use ends. You can still use it for a one-shot kill weapon if you're out of ammo, but it's no match for a good pistol at your side.

Outside of the story mode, we have Arcade mode (multiplayer deathmatch, team modes, and some other modes like BagTag and Monkey Assistant), and the Challenges, which I'll elaborate on in a moment.

The multiplayer aspect of this seems to cater to everybody. You have traditional, fast-paced deathmatch (in Goldeneye-styled "find a gun first" or with the option to start with a weapon by default), team deathmatch, capture the flag, and Assault mode (which also contains the driveable vehicles). These guys are obviously trying to out-do Halo, and I believe they succeed at this. Not only does this let you customize every bit of the game (from the map, to the kill and time limits, to one-shot kills, the full weapon set, even bots), but it also works on System Link and through Sony's broadband adapter (I was unable to test either of those, so I can't vouch for how smooth it is).

The Challenge modes are much like those in TS2, though the environments are somewhat more creative (and a few other modes that are of interest). You have the old classic "Behead the Undead" mode, where you must fight off the endless hordes of zombies. Then you have Timesplitters Story Classic, which is much like the first game (in that it lacks a real story, and is just getting the Time Crystal and leaving). But where it gets really interesting is the Miscellaneous stages (which include a basketball game with the gravity gun) and the Cat Driving mode (a mechanical cat on wheels races laps around three tracks). You'll have your work cut out for you if you want to get gold medals (or heck, platinum medals) on all of them.

Oh, and the best part about TS:FP? Unlike a certain other four-lettered game that begins with H, it doesn't end in a disappointing cliffhanger. It starts in a comprehensive manner, it ends without any kind of loose plot threads.

9/10 - I wish there were more unlockable cheats. And I also wish there were more environments from TS2 (I miss Jake Fenton).

GRAPHICS

TS:FP is represented in a rather cartoony style, which more than fits the game's sense of humor. Each environment looks as you'd expect it to, and the characters have the exaggerated movements to go along with it. Of course, the detail in the models is a bit lacking in places (hands are not fully articulated - especially noted in any cutscenes that show a close-up of Cortez's hand).

But all in all, this is much improved from TS2 - you have actual hands on all the weapons, as well as detailed reloading animations.

8.5/10 - Well, it isn't perfect, but it's certainly not an eyesore.

SOUNDS

Mostly, the sound effects are recycled from other entries in the series, but they still sound quite wonderful. Voice acting is surprisingly well done (though Jo-Beth Casey did get a little annoying), and the delivery is once again very funny. And hey, you really haven't heard anything until you play the game with "Human Gun Sounds" enabled.

Music is also well done, though it's hard to hear over the gunfire. A lot of music has been recycled from TS1 and 2, but at least the story mode music is all new. (It's a shame they struck all of the 1930's Chicago stuff from the record...I liked the music there.)

9/10

OVERALL

Lost amidst the hype of Halo 2, this one really deserved a better reception. Seek this one out.

9/10

[weasel]

Shenmue Chapter 1: Yokosuka
Warning: long article - no individual category scores

Developer: CRI/Sega AM2
Publisher: SEGA
ESRB: T (Animated Violence, Strong Language, use of Tobacco and Alcohol)
System: Dreamcast

Shenmue was Sega's ace in the hole - the one killer app for the Dreamcast that was supposed to boost sales for the console. The one game that was delayed so long that it skipped an entire console generation from the Sega Saturn. The game with so much stuff to do that it could last for ages.

Well, not quite.

Shenmue is the magnum opus of one Yu Suzuki, who has been with Sega since the early 80's and has worked on such major titles as Hang-On and Virtua Fighter. Originally slated to be a Virtua Fighter RPG of sorts (that honor now belongs to Virtua Quest), this ambitious project is still in the works - and it's jumped past two console systems now.

The original Shenmue on Dreamcast waited so long to arrive in the States that people began to believe that it was vaporware. But Sega finally came through - unfortunately for them, rather close to the end of the Dreamcast's US lifecycle (by the time Shenmue 2's localization was nearing completion, the Dreamcast finally died, and the project was sent to the XBox instead).

Shenmue takes place in the small, quiet town of Yokosuka, Japan, where everybody knows your name (well, because you've been living there for eighteen years, and having a famous martial artist for a father helps too) - you are Ryo Hazuki. High school student, martial artist in training, private detective (though not officially).

December 4th, 1986. You're on your way home from...somewhere (the game never explains where you came from). It's snowing, which is a surprise this early in the season. You arrive at your house to see a sinister-looking black car, the gate to the Hazuki Residence hanging wide open, and the signpost smashed up on the floor.

And the guys that did this are still in your house.

You look into the dojo to see your best friend and sparring partner, Fukuhara, tossed clear out the door. And inside is your father, and a Chinese man you've never seen before. The man kills your father right in front of you, and steals one of his prized possessions - a stone mirror with a dragon design on it.

You set off to avenge the death of your father, reclaim the mirror, and - what else? - settle a personal vendetta with the Chinese guy.

Now, you can explore the story at your own pace. If you look around you instead of just blindly following the path that is given to you, you'll find a whole wealth of things to do (ahem...not so much as advertised). There are capsule toy dispensers that you can collect things from (many of which containing some element from Sega's history - Virtua Fighter, Fantasy Zone, Sonic, Nights, Phantasy Star...), soda machines you can buy from, a little slot machine parlor (which, sadly, doesn't let you gamble your hard-earned Yen - it only lets you buy tokens which aren't worth anything), an arcade (with arcade-perfect emulations of Space Harrier and Hang-On), and the general populace of the town (which you can bug endlessly about the latest leg in your journey - "I'm looking for a guy named Charlie!")

The story mostly involves you walking around town (and eventually the harbor) asking questions in efforts to work your way up to finding the aforementioned Chinese killer dude (Lan Di). On occasion, you'll encounter places where you participate in a Quick Time Event (watch what happens on screen and hit buttons when it tells you to so Ryo doesn't get hurt), or where you're in an all-out brawl (with as many as 70 people at a time!).

Now, the story doesn't start to really get interesting until at least the second or third discs, when you start getting yourself into even more hot water than before. Lan Di's men start catching wind of you on their trail, and you get into even more fights and tough spots than in the first disc. If you're one of an impatient mind, Shenmue is not for you.

Graphically, the game is absolutely astounding for its time. Characters can have many different facial expressions, most have articulated hands and detailed faces, and the environments serve as more than a backdrop - lots of care and detail was put into these areas to make sure that you feel that you are Ryo Hazuki. On occasion, though, the game shows just how taxing the game's engine is on the Dreamcast hardware - especially in Dobuita and the Harbor areas, you'll notice people fading in and out to preserve resources. There is also plenty of slowdown in the harbor, because it's a very busy place (though I feel the poor framerates are owed mainly to the vast amount of pigeons).

Might I add that the detail placed into the little things is pretty good as well - a search through Ryo's dresser reveals about the coolest looking sock drawer to ever be shown in a video game. (I know it's just a texture, but man, that's photo-realism right there.)

The game's audio department is where things start to lose their luster - sure, the soundtrack is awesome (provided by Yuzo Koshiro, no less) but where the game really loses it is the voice acting.

Ryo Hazuki - high school student, martial artist in training, private detective...robot?

Ryo rarely shows any emotion in his voice acting (unless he's interrogating somebody that he's particularly angry with). The rest of the cast isn't much better, either, and I wonder where the localization team was when they began to record the English voices. The dialog lacks cohesion, and people tend to spout things that just don't seem natural. I cite an example from the raffle ticket contest at the Tomato Convenience Store:

Quote

RYO: No prize...
CLERK: Especially since you bought merchandise.

The regular old sound effects are fine (though Ryo's footsteps on pavement sound kinda cheesy); it's just the voice acting that needs work.

The game's controls are very touchy as well - the interface is okay for the most part (barring a bit of confusion when Ryo must unlock a locked chest with a key), using the A button to interact with nearly everything. Moving around town is difficult - the control pad (not the stick) is used to maneuver Ryo through the various environments, using semi-relative motion (in other words, tapping Left or Right will cause Ryo to turn in either direction while also walking forward). The control stick is used to look around, the L button makes Ryo run straight forward (which you'll be doing a lot since he walks really slowly, though not to a Parasite Eve level of slowness), and you can turn in place by holding the B button (I almost never used this because it was just too much trouble). The combat system is well-designed and easy to pick up, but I found it difficult on occasion to deal with multiple enemies at a time (Ryo usually seemed to go the wrong way, or hit the wrong person).

Upon completing the game, you are also allowed to replay the game with a different weather system based on actual weather data from Yokosuka in 1986, but this is hardly worth going through the game again for. You can also replay the last major battle scene (the 70-man free-for-all) and try and beat your best time on it, but again, not a lot for replay value.

The game's replay value comes from experiencing all the cutscenes that you might have missed (I certainly missed a lot - on my third playthrough, I found a few flashback scenes that I missed, as well as a few emotional moments between Ryo and his girlfriend Nozomi, who he doesn't seem to care much about), collecting all the little trinkets (which is more or less a waste of money, since the real reason for doing that is so you could sell them to pawnshops in Shenmue 2 - and since there is no US Dreamcast version of it, there's no way you can carry those over from the first game), and beating those darn arcade games (to win more little trinkets). If you're a completist, go on ahead.

If you don't care about all the extra side stuff, you'll probably be saddened that the main story is actually quite short if you know what you're doing (my first playthrough took me almost an entire game month, and about forty hours of gameplay - my latest play was probably only 15 hours, with minimal side-stuff).

The last major thing about the game is that it comes with a fourth disc called the Passport - using this disc, you can replay old cinema scenes that you've seen before, watch old promotional videos, listen to the music, and trade in winning soda cans for (what else?) more little trinkets (which requires an Internet connection to your DC, I believe...I never got to try this).

The bottom line about Shenmue: the plot is engaging if you're patient, the game has plenty of replay values if you're a completist, the game takes a long while if you stray from the main path, and the game sounds great if you turn off the speech. In other words, Shenmue is not for everyone - it takes a certain person to fully appreciate what the game has to offer.

TOTAL SCORE: 8/10

[Goshi]

Einhander

System: PSOne
Genere: Action
Designer: Squaresoft
ERSB: Well it should be E although I think it gave it a T or something, weird.

Yes thats right, Squaresoft actuallty made a shmup game, how unlike them. Although this game is quite obscure its not obscure enough to go in the obscure review thread, okay?

Plot:
Wow a Shmup that attepts to have a decent plot, whilst the main plot deals with a war against the Moon and the Earth and it doeshave a typical RPG plot twsit style thing eventually, whilst this is typical cliche to most games considering this is the shmup genere it is quite a suprise so I guess it gets bonus marks for attempting a good plot for it.

6.5/10 (Its cliched man!)

Gameplay:
Plays like most horizontal action shmups pretty much although it has fancy camera angles and such. The camera angles are nice but they make the somewhat annyoing espically when your trying to avoid a hoarde of bullets coming your direction, otherwise it is like most shmups. Like Gradius, Aerowings or Salamander anything will pretty much kill you in one hit which does increrase its difficulty by quite a large amount. The level layouts are pretty simular to each other, each level has 1 mid boss and 1 major boss. Each level also has you dealing with the typical swarms of enemies although Stage 6 adds quite some variety into the mix. You also have gunpods which enable you use secondary weapons these can be either Vulcan cannons, grenades or even a saber however you'll be relying on thiese for your survival rather than your built-in weapon when it comes to boss fights mainly because of the increased firepower and range if oyu didn't have them during a boss fight things can get quite messy. Lastly you have a fews ships to choose at the start of each game, nothing fancy there although they can help suit your style,if you lkove using secondary weapons than simply choose the ship with more gunpods and if you prefer the built-in weapon simply choose the one with doubled firepower on it, simple. Lastly you either have the gunpood above or below your ship this effects its range or simply how the weapon attacks otherwise it adds nothing fancy except maybe addtional defense seeing as how the gunpod itself has its own health too. The gameplay is actually quite good.
9.5/10

Graphics:
The 3D models are incredible, its kinda hard to beleive that Square put so much effort in making them even though this is nothing but a side project. Although the 3D models are quite impressive the backgrounds aren't, well they're okay but look like something you can expect from the SNES but toherwise the visuals are quite amazing and probably one of the best Square has done.
9/10

Music and Sound:
The sound effects are okay, the music is mostly techno tracks, well I don't mind techno when its done well although the music is not the best done from Square, it is good but not memorial, you won't start humming to the tunes or anything but at least its done well. Otherwsie its just average in the section.
7/10

Multiplayer:
As far as I know there's none whatsoever, first shmup I've seen without multiplayer. O_o

If you want a shmup for multiplayer than Gradius Gaiden is your best bet.
-/-

Difficulty: Hard
To me it would more medium but like I said I am a absoulte freak at this genere I LOVE shmups, get used to it. Anyway this game is quite possibly one of hardest ones I played, the difficulty is rather unbalanced too. The first two levels (In my opinion at least) are pathetically easy however the difficulty then takes a huge leap once you reach the mid-boss of Stage 3, quite a pain the difficulty then continues to increase and increase until the Final Stage which is rather easy. In order actually have a grasp at this game you'll need to be able to memorize the levels and the bosses' attack patterns, not the best game for a newbie of the genere to start.

Overall:
8/10

Goshi says: "This game is very ignored, although I highly suggest you get this. Besides its better than a lot of Square's other projects @_@"

[Goshi]

I am invading the review thread MWAHAHAHAHAH! Now I'm going to review one of my favourite games of all time.

Tales of Phantasia

System: PSOne, GBA, SNES
Genere: RPG
Designer: Namco, Tri-Ace
ERSB: E, I guess. Although the bathing scene and the Harpies might not make E suitable >_>

Well I guess I'll be reviewing all three versions, at once. Whilst they are all completely different in their own ways I guess I can mage... right?

Plot:
Fairly cliche, the game starts off with 4 heroes off defeating a villian. Then the scene shifts to our hero Cless, and his sidekick Chester off hunting, during that time Cless invisions a girl telling him to protect the tree Yggdrasill. Afterwards the village is attacked soldiers seeking the pendant Cless holds. Soon Cless relises their trying to revive the villian the 4 heroes once defeated and goes off to stop them. I won't go any fuurther although later on a lot of the plot involves quite a bit of time travel, and a lot to do with that tree as well. The plot is cliched a fair few times but toherwise its done quite well. I found the PSOne version went a little deeper with the plot but toherwise that's just me.
7/10

Gameplay:
Typical RPG, wonder around buy stuff, explore, defeat bosses, blah blah. However the battle system is quite original. Rather than being Turn Based and such you fight in a real time side view battle system, sorta like a Street Fighter game in a lot of ways. In SNES the system is heavily flawed having yourself being automatically retreated all the time and made it feel so restricted, the PSOne version has that as well although like in ToD there's technical rings will allow the character to be controlled manually (Duh.) this makes the movement much smoother and easier to use and helps make the controls in battle a lot easier. Also there's and item for Cless that he equip that allows him to use his ougis with Street Fighter styled button combinations, added with the Technical Ring you can pretty much turn this game completely into a Street Fighter stlyed game very cool. Although you cannot get the Technical Ring in the SNES you can get that special item. Obviously the PSOne version is more superior. Also the game has the infamous random encounters, in the SNES version it quickly gets frustrating, its like every 5 steps you take your instantly warped into a battle, very annoying. This was cured in the PSOne version, thank goodness. And like I said, the PSOne version is obviously superior. Anyway the gameplay is good although in the SNES version it does quickly get on your nerves.
9/10

Graphics:
SNES standards, quite possibly one of the best you'll ever seen, its simply stunning all the effects, too hard to describe! PSOne version well the graphics are nice and all but they are below PSOne standards but the game still looks beutiful and not hideous. My only complaint with the SNES version is that none of the characters follow their artwork.
9/10

Music and Sound:
In both versions the music sounds lovely, although the boss theme and final battle song are pretty repetitive. The GBA music is okay but it just isn't as good as the other two. The main theme song is one my favourites in the game.
9/10

Multiplayer:
Only appearent in the PSOne version to my knowledge (I'm not sure about the GBA one) anyway who said RPG games cannot be good multiplayer games. Anyway the only problem is most characters are mages, and being a magic user is kinda boring.
7/10

Difficulty: Medium
Its not too hard at times although some parts can be quite frustrating (CURSE YOU FANGBEAST!) also the random encounters will get on your nerves otherwise the difficulty is okay, although playing Mania mode is a bit overkill on your poor party.

Overall:
9/10

Goshi says: "The PSOne version is much better although the SNES version is translated, however the only way you'd beable to play this is through emulation."

[weasel]

Indigo Prophecy known in Europe as "Fahrenheit"

Developer: Quantic Dream
Publisher: Atari
Platform: PC, Playstation 2, XBox (no Gamecube version)
ESRB: M (Blood,Partial Nudity,Sexual Themes,Strong Language,Use of Drugs and Alcohol,Violence)
US Release Date: September 28th (omg that's today!)

I managed to score a copy of Fahrenheit from a friend the other day, so I got a chance to play through it and get enough data to write a review - before the game even hit shelves. Now I know what it feels like to work at Gamespy or something. Of course, having a non-domestic copy of the game means a few things are different, but I'll get to those in due time.

Many of you who owned a Dreamcast back in 2000 are familiar with Sega/AM2's adventure game, Shenmue. The game involved a mystery, several different interfaces, and the occasional fight scene (whether scripted or free-battle). Indigo Prophecy is sure to remind a whole lot of Shenmue, except without all the extra time-wasting crap in the background to distract you from the plot.

Upon selecting the tutorial mode (which explains how to play the game fairly well), the game's writer/director David Cage appears on screen to guide you through all the different things you'll have to do in the game. It's a bit difficult to make out what he's saying because of his accent, making me wish there were subtitles in the game, but once the game started, I didn't really need them.

The game casts you as not one, but three different characters who you can occasionally switch between at will. You can walk around the different environments as those characters, performing actions by making the corresponding motion with the right analog stick (the motions are helpfully displayed on screen for you). You can also look around in first person, but you can't move while in first person (except in a few scenes).

The game also features quite a number of action sequences, which play out like Shenmue's Quick-Time Events - you watch the action unfold on screen, and make movements with your analog sticks when the screen prompts you to (with a pair of Simon-like pads - except in this case, it's not a game of memory; you just have to push the buttons as they light up). Then there are some "stress" scenes, that involve your character doing something difficult - you have to tap the shoulder buttons back and forth as fast as you can to take care of the action.

The interface is pretty intuitive, and makes for little distraction in uncovering each individual thread of the plot.

And oh, what a plot it is. It's like playing a James Patterson novel. If you're unfamiliar with James Patterson, his writing style usually involves many different viewpoints - often alternating between that of a criminal, and the man that pursues him.

The game begins at Doc's Diner in New York City. A man gets up to go to the bathroom, and is attacked from behind by a man holding a knife.

That man is you. You have no control over this scene - it's as if you've been possessed. When you come to, you're standing over the man's corpse, and you have to figure out how to get out of there without being suspected. Then it's a merry chase between you and a pair of crack police detectives. Each character you play has their own purposes and obligations - while Lucas Kane is busy trying to figure out what happened to him in that bathroom that made him kill that man, the police - detectives Carla Valenti and Tyler Myles - are trying to track him down. You get involved in the lives of each one of them during the course of the game.

The real beauty of this game is the replay value - nearly everything you can do in this game is almost completely optional. For instance, in the initial scene in the diner restroom, you can choose to pick up after yourself and clear out the evidence, or rush out and spook everyone. This doesn't actually change the plot, but it'll modify little details about the way it plays out - you could make it easier on the cops by not hiding the murder weapon, but later on it'll be more difficult to evade suspicion. There are so many different ways you can change things, it's worth playing the game again.

The game is actually very good looking. I've seen other reviewers absolutely destroy this game in the graphical department, but honestly, I think it looks fine. It has just the right amount of graphical splendor needed to convey a story of this type. Characters have many facial expressions, and near-perfect lip syncing. Their animations are all motion-captured, making things look pretty real. There are a few very minor clipping issues with the models but you'll barely notice them if you're busy with the plot.

The audio aspect of the game is pretty good as well. Voice-acting is Hollywood quality, delivering the right amount of emotion and realism to the lines given. Sound effects and music are also very well done, lending toward the game's atmosphere as well as any other game. Of course, there does come a point where the greatness isn't so much - sometimes lines can get repetitive after hearing them so many times (like hearing a soldier shout "Don't move or I'll shoot!"), and there just isn't a whole lot of music in the game, meaning that many scenes in the game feature the same track. Thankfully, though, the music is fairly non-intrusive, so it's not like you'd get particularly annoyed at a given track. And the plus side is that you can always turn it off.

Overall, Indigo Prophecy is about the finest adventure game to ever grace the shelves of a computer store since LucasArts stopped making them. If you're into adventure games, or games with a good plot, you owe it to yourself to check this one out.

9.5/10

Extra Note: There is also a demo out for the PC version of the game (and, from what I've heard, the XBox version).

Censorship Notice: The American release of Indigo Prophecy had a scene cut out that still exists in the European release. The scene was cut because of fear about repercussions from the Hot Coffee case (a sex scene was cut for the final American release). The ESRB rating (which I pulled off of EBGames) should still accurately reflect the content of the game.



edit: hey, I'm dominating the review threads again.

[Goshi]

I've beaten it like 100 times today so I guess it legiment for review.

Gunstar Super Heroes

"My name is Green.... SEVEN FORCE!!!"

System: GBA
Genere: Action
Designer: Treasure
ERSB: E

Many of us have long awaited it, so is it worth the wait or isa it just Treasure trying to show of the technology skillz? Read and find out!

Plot:
Exactly the same from the first, evil Genral Grey is trying to resurrect the "Destructor" and try and take over the world. Although they're are a few extra twists and such to it if you play on higher difficulties. A huge improvment from the first, whilst the idea is pretty much the same it is expressed much better. Although it is still pretty cliche.
6.5/10

Gameplay:
You can no longer combine weapons (OHHH DEAR), although the game is still pretty fun. You have 3 weapons to choose from at anytime (Like in Gunner's Heaven) with each character, Red gets the uh... rapid fire bullety thingy like from Gunstar Heroes, Blue gets that Lightning weapon from Gunstar Heroes, both characters gets the Fire weapon and the Chaser which is pretty much the same as Chaster + Lightning from Gunstar Heroes only it doesn't stick to a target and the homing effect isn't as effective either. You can also do the Gunstar Action which is a powered up version of the currect weapon your using, to do this you need to have certain amount of the gauge on the top of the screen filled. This can be done by collect the Green Star power ups or by attacking enemies. Now the bosses, whilst rather cool looking and very well animated are quite dissapointing compared to Treasure's other titles. Seven Force and Minon Soldier still keep their glory although a lot of bosses like Pink Walker or Orange have been dumbed down majorly and are not really that fun to fight... unless you like seeig Pink's hurt animation or something O_o. Also in some levels you ride on top of Yellow's Jet thing and shoot enemies whilst riding on top of it. Whilst the idea sounds cool and all it is pretty repetive. Also we have the shoot em't styled level reappearing however the movement feels somewhat restrictive, although the fact you can rotate the view is pretty cool. Lastly we have the new Helicopter part that appears the start of Orange's stage. You can move around in any direction and rotate the helicopter although the difficulty for that part is quite high (Unless your playing Easy) and rather frustrating. Anyway, otherwise this game plays exactly like the first, the levels are pretty much the same only some of them have been shortened but its fun.
9/10

Graphics:
One word.
AWESOME.

Seriously the graphics are gorgeous to look at, the bosses are so well animated, the scenery is nice to see, the Mode 7 effects are used well, the graphics are lovely. There is also very little slowdown as well, which also gives it a plus. Seriosuly the graphics are probably some of the best you'll see for the GBA.
9.8/10 (Because it can never be perfect )

Music and Sound:
I have'nt played the English version yet although I don't plan to when I heard they ruined the voices. Anyway, the voices in the Jap version are done pretty well, they suit the characters well, although the voice you hear during the title screen gets on your nerves pretty quickly. The music is really good even though its just remixes from of the music from the first. However they are really good. The sound is seriously a HUGE improvment from the ifrst. (Honestly the music and osund from the first made my ears scream). Anyway considering that from what I heard the English voices are crap I might tone down the score a little. Until I play the english version yeah... I'll just assume the English voices are crap anyway.
9/10

Multiplayer:
Sadly this was one of the things removed in the game, the multiplayer was actually fairly fun in the original but now its long gone.
-/-

Difficulty: Medium - Hard
Easy is really easy. Medium is actually pretty hard in comparsion to easy, actually VERY hard in comparsion but otherwise pretty easy once you get the ghist of it. Hard... to be honest I've never completed it (CURSE YOU ORANGE'S STAGE!!!) but otherwise the difficulty is nicely balanced and each difficulty (Except Hard, curse you Orange!) can be beaten quite easily with enough practise. Although I have never survived against the "File Crasher boss" >.< Otherwise yes, it is a lot harder than the first so come preapred with your old skool skillz

Overall:
9/10

Goshi says: "While in ways disapointing comapared, this is one of the best GBA games ever. I highly recommend."

[weasel]

Doom 3
Because nobody else has done it yet on this forum.

Genre: First-Person Shooter
Developer: id Software
Publisher: Activision
ESRB: M
Platform: PC (XBox version exists, but it's rather different from the PC version)

One of id's most anticipated games to date. Of course, hype can sometimes blow the final product out of proportion.

See, Doom 3 was hyped up enough that a lot of people thought it'd be the Best Game Ever. But when they finally picked it up, they discovered that it was really no different from the first Doom game - non-stop action in a horror setting. No real mission objectives to worry about (outside of using computers and just going through the levels), plot is mostly optional, just lots of shooting.

But I don't let that get me down - in fact, that's why I liked the original Doom so much.

The game starts off rather like Half-Life - you've just arrived at Mars City and you go through the registration process. Bio-scanning, picking up a PDA, reporting for duty. You can also goof around like in HL - playing Super Turbo Turkey Puncher 3 in the Mars City cafe, or punching soda cans around.

When you report for duty, you get your first task - find a missing scientist. It's when you find him that the crap hits the proverbial fan.

Zombies are everywhere. Lights are going out, machines are malfunctioning, doors being bashed to the point of inoperation. And while you find an alternate route back to the City, you can hear the screams of terror from fellow Marines as they get slaughtered by all manner of unearthly beings.

You get some decent firepower eventually. While you don't start with anything to speak of outside of your fists, you pick up a Pistol and Flashlight from the locker when you're reporting for your first task. Yes, a flashlight - the subject of much controversy in more than a few reviews. The game depends so much on this flashlight, because the rooms are so poorly lit. Yet it's treated as a seperate weapon - why couldn't the Marine Command issue a clip-on flashlight, or better yet, a tactical flashlight? Yes, it bugs me. It does help the atmosphere, but it gets pretty annoying when you're fighting larger monsters like Revenants and you can't see them. To make matters worse, weapons like Plasma Guns and BFG's don't light the place up as well as they ought to.

But the game does a pretty good job of providing non-stop action. This is perhaps one of the most atmospheric action-shooters I've played since the original Quake. The usage of ambient sound, combined with the conspicuous lack of music (outside of the title screen) just has a way of pulling you in.

Graphically, the game is pretty nice, supporting per-pixel lighting in such a stunningly realistic way that it's possible to actually be scared by shadows. Everything casts a shadow. It's awesome.

But on the other end of the spectrum of graphics, while the game supports fancy things like bump-mapping, sometimes they are used to excess - making many things look like plastic. Turning the bump-map effects off makes things look flat and unnatural, almost worse than leaving them on.

And it'll take a good video card to make this stuff run very well at all. My computer had serious difficulties running the game at 640x480 in low quality with the effects off (P4 3.0 GHz, 512 meg RAM, Geforce FX 5200 128MB). I'd get a steady 25 FPS with no monsters around, but when a battle situation arises, things slow down. Way down.

Multiplayer? Pssh. This is about the most simplistic multiplayer around, supporting Deathmatch and Team Deathmatch for up to four players out of the box. All the weapons from the single-player game (except the BFG and Soul Cube) are used in the multi-player game, and a few extra powerups are scattered around as well. I thought deathmatch was supposed to be a bit slower-paced this time around, but it still moves lightning fast - the "slow" part is because there are only 4 players max in a level without mods.

So if you're interested in a good single-player bloodbath, and don't care much about multi-player capabilities, pick this one up.

And if the flashlight thing bugs you that much, go look up the Duct Tape Mod.

8/10

[Goshi]

Rhapsody: A musical adventure

"Aye aye! Captain Crunch!"

System:
Genere: Tactical RPG
Designer: Nippon Ichi
ERSB: E

Its seriously hard to tell if this game is obscire or not, but chances are it isn't. Anyway the game has a unique ida of implementing musical scenes kinda like from a Disney movie. Although is this game actually worth it?

Plot:
Rather cliche, an evil witch named Marjoly is doing dirty deeds and finds that Myao has been harassed so goes off to find the culprit soon she relises its a hansome prince and decides to seduce however she used the wrong spell and can no longer free him or have any of her... pleasures... with him. Cornet (The heroine) however is annoyed decides to go on a journey to free the prince and defeat her. It is cliche, it has some interesting twists near the end and the cast is really good however like I said it is rather cliche although the dialogue is good for a laugh if you enjoy anime styled humour.
6.5/10

Gameplay:
The battle system is generic tatical like system like in Tactics Ogre, nothing special except maybe the Horn and Reward commands, but they's basic and are hardly needed. The dungeons... are hell to go thorugh. They're maze like and all the rooms look EXACTLY the same. Not only is it easy to get lost but its nowhere near fun to do too, the dungeons also lack variety too, and are mostly either caves or ruins. PLus added with random encounters and the battle systems nature, this game is no good. Also Auto-Battle is reatarded, it never lets your character actually use their skills. The gameplay is very poor and the dungeons are evil to explore, the gameplay ruins the whole fun of the game.
3/10

Graphics:
Heavily below standard, nothing fancy or anything, the areas look fairly impressive but the appearances are often reused. The graphics are rather more a SNES type standard. Although graphics aren't important or anything and at least its not ugly like one game I can think of... (*cough* SaGa Frontier *cough*) Anyway graphics have always been NI's weakness though but they could at least jazzed it up a little extra. I mean all the battle animations look exactly the same is really stupid.
5/10

Music and Sound:
Considering the english title is called "Rhapsody: A MUSICAL ADVENTURE, you'd expect the music to be actually good right? It is, the music is done very well, the songs are done nicely and its nice that you get an option to switch to the Japanese ones if you don't fancy the english ones, the music is good. However a lot of the songs are often reused and the battle themes suck... welll the final boss theme is actually super cool, but the rest all stink. The battle system that plays after the main plot is revealed is annoying to listen too. But otherwise the music is good, it just lacks variety like the battle animations...
8/10

Multiplayer:
None to speak of.
-/-

Difficulty: SUPER Easy
The game is seriously easy, you pretty much level up after every single battle and the enemies have little health. It is fairly moderate in hard difficulty but even so its still easy. Easy difficulty is waaaaay too easy though. Unlioke NI's other games like Disgaea, extreme levelling isn't really needed, the game is sooo easy. The only difficult things you'll be doing is exploring those hell holes of dungeons.

Overall:
4.5/10

Goshi says: "Yes, this game sucks, they're very few good things about. You should avoid this."

[weasel]

Kingdom Hearts
Hey, it's like that old goat says: Rule 11: It's all just a game, so let loose and have fun with it! I mean, a casualty or two along the way is no big deal, right?

Genre: Action RPG
Developer: Squaresoft and Disney Interactive
Platform: PS2
ESRB: E (Violence)

The ultimate Disney fanservice, with parts of Squaresoft games thrown in for the heck of it. There's a few other games mixed in here as well...keep reading!

You play as the prerequisite pre-teen boy hero, Sora, who has a pretty cool outfit outside of his clown boots. After a cool intro cinematic, and a really creepy tutorial scene in which you fight monsters atop various stained glass windows, you find yourself in the Real World.

It was almost painful to plod through the introduction of the game on the Destiny Islands - there was barely anything to fight outside of Riku (Sora's friend, not related to Rikku of FF10 fame), Selphie, Tidus and Wakka; and the entirety of the quest on the Islands was fetching items. Not a promising start, after the cool/creepy tutorial scene.

But once all that's over with...the game really kicks it into gear.

The Destiny Islands are absorbed into the darkness, and you find yourself in an unknown place - Traverse Town, the home of those whose worlds were destroyed.

You get this crazy weapon called the Keyblade and you get to beat the crap out of enemies with it. Eventually you learn magic and get party members.

I suppose I ought to elaborate - the battle system is mostly reminiscent of Zelda 64, with the lock-on targeting and button-mashing combat. But you also get a little mini-menu in the lower-left side of the screen that you can pick items and magic with (it's controlled with the pad or the right analog stick). And for those of you that like using magic, you have three quick-slots you can assign magic to.

Combat usually pits you and your party (typically consisting of Donald and Goofy) against the unrelenting hordes of the Heartless (more often than not, a single room will send about 15 guys at you, depending on the size of said room). To assist you in dealing with these things, Donald and Goofy are controlled by AI. If they're not attacking the right guy, you can always lock on to the target yourself and hit a button to send them in.

Magic consists of your typical Final Fantasy affair - fire, blizzard, thunder, cure, aero, gravity. But where it gets interesting is the Summons.

Rather than throw in the tired Shiva/Ifrit/Ramuh/Bahamut roster that we've been seeing for years, Square opted to let Disney handle the summons. You control such powerful beings as Simba from Lion King and the Genie from Aladdin, and the effects for all of the summons are varied enough that there's something for everybody (I like the Genie's Showtime attack, just because I'm a man of style).

The Disney fanservice involves plenty of different worlds from Disney movies ranging from the 1940's to present day. You go to such locales as Wonderland, Atlantica, Neverland, the Deep Jungle, Halloween Town, even Monstro the Whale. Some places offer Sora and company a visual makeover (like Halloween Town) or even a completely different control set (Atlantica offers three-dimensional movement underwater).

Getting between worlds isn't like most RPG's - rather than just walking, riding an airship, or taking a chocobo (sadly, chocobos aren't in the game - but Moogles are), you get to ride the Gummi Ship.

The Gummi Ship is a fully customizable spaceship that is composed of gummi blocks - assembled much like Lego bricks. When your ship is put together, you can fly it between worlds Panzer Dragoon style (you even get homing lasers at some point). It's not exactly the ultimate shooter, but it provides a nice diversion between worlds (and if you really want to, later on you get a warp drive that lets you skip these parts if you've already gone between two worlds).

The game's graphics are awesome. The framerate keeps to a constant 30 FPS (I think there might have been slowdown on occasion, but I don't remember too well so it must not have been that bad). The character models are perfect representations of Disney's characters (though some have odd flaws here and there - Aladdin appears crosseyed from certain angles). Animations are another story - for the most part, they're pretty good, but in certain cutscenes, the lipsyncing was not implemented, so instead of seeing the lips move realistically, you see simple texture changes that don't look that good at all (and they're typically taken with the mouth in a "happy" expression, so Captain Hook will look downright dorky when he's going through his tirades).

The game's soundtrack is generally pretty good - some songs just got on my nerves though (Under The Sea? This Is Halloween? ARGH! Thank God they didn't put in the lyrics!). The voices were done in English (I've heard that the Japanese voices are just hilarious, if for no other reason than that you can hear Donald Duck shouting "Ohayo gozaimasu!" in the beginning) by their original actors, with certain exceptions - because naturally, they wouldn't be able to get names like Robin Williams on the cast, though the existing actors do pretty good likenesses. Surprisingly, they managed to get pretty much the entire original casts from all the films, including Hercules.

There are only a few things I wish could have been done to the game though - like, for example, the Pixar movies, and The Emperor's New Groove (though it'd probably be butchered without David Spade and John Goodman on the cast). Supposedly the sequel will be touching on other aspects of Disney's history, including an entire world based on the original Steamboat Willy cartoon.

Overall, this is a highly worthy purchase. Just ignore the Disney stuff, for underneath it all lies a very good (and sometimes very dark) game. It's kid-friendly, yes, but it tends to be kind of creepy (the intro is a case in point). Only the occasional camera issue really hurts the gameplay.

9/10

[GetDizzy]

Quote

And it'll take a good video card to make this stuff run very well at all. My computer had serious difficulties running the game at 640x480 in low quality with the effects off (P4 3.0 GHz, 512 meg RAM, Geforce FX 5200 128MB). I'd get a steady 25 FPS with no monsters around, but when a battle situation arises, things slow down. Way down.

YEEEP
Uhh
nevermind then!

I was going to possibly get it because although I didnt like the XBOX version I could probably cheat my way through this version or at least be able to see, but... well, if your 3GHz P3 and 512MB of RAM and 128MB GeForce 5 cant do it, then I dont see how my 1.2GHz AthXP, 640MB of RAM and 64MB GeForce 2 GTS can...

Of course then again I also dont see how a 733MHz machine with a 64MB GeForce 3 and 32MB of RAM ran it either... (xbox)

I guess these minimum specs are optimistic at best?

Pentium III, 1Ghz
256Mb RAM

3D card:
NV10 or R200 minimum hardware
OpenGL hardware acceleration
64 MB VRAM

This post has been edited by Insidious: 07 November 2005 - 01:51 PM

[weasel]

I won't bother getting into an argument over how the XBox has specific optimizations. The fact is, my computer's video card is just incapable of rendering at a decent speed, as are other video cards of the same class. If your card outclasses mine, and the rest of your specs are similar, then you should have no problem playing Doom 3.

As for the official minimum requirements...I'd expect those to at least play the game, but don't expect it to run particularly well unless you install the unofficial Voodoo 2 patch (which is pretty much not worth it because it turns off every effect, including shaders and lighting).

[Spectere]

Hm? Doom3 is very playable on my system -- Pentium 4 2.0GHz, 512MB RAM, GeForce 3 64MB (640x480, low quality, of course).

Make sure your video card drivers are updated. The older drivers that came with the FX cards yielded horrible performance with DX9's pixel shaders.

[Torte]

[[Well, they did lower a lot of the details and removed some stuff. It's probably also got to do with the fact that it doesn't need to run any OS in the background or anything else power consuming.]]

[weasel]

Spectere, on Nov 7 2005, 11:48 AM, said:

Make sure your video card drivers are updated. The older drivers that came with the FX cards yielded horrible performance with DX9's pixel shaders.

At the time of the review, I was running the Forceware 78.01 drivers for Windows XP. 640x480 at low quality, most effects (except High Quality Shaders) turned on.

My computer just sucks. I know.